Trade and Integration Flashcards
WTO
- an international body responsible for negotiating trade agreements and ‘policing’ the rules of trade to which its members sign up.
- Trade disputes between members are settled by the WTO.
Absolute advantage
where one country is able to produce more of a good or service with the same amount of resources, such that the unit cost of production is lower.
Reciprocal absolute advantage
Where, in a theoretical world of two countries and two products, each country has an absolute advantage in one of the two products.
Comparative advantage
Where one country produces a good or service at a lower relative opportunity cost than others.
Relative opportunity cost
The cost of production of one good or service, in terms of the sacrificed output of another good or service in one country relative to another.
Terms of trade
The price of a country’s exports relative to the price of its imports.
Terms of trade = [Index of average export prices] / [index of average import prices] x 100%
Trading possibility curve (TPC)
A representation of all the combinations of two products that a country can consume if it engages in international trade.
The TPC lies outside the production possibility curve (PPC) showing the gains in consumption possible from international trade.
Factor endowments
The mix of land, labour and capital that a country posses.
Factor endowments can be determined by, among other things, geography, historical legacy, and economic and social development.
Factor intensities
The balance between land, labour and capital required in the production of a good or service.
Labour-intensive production
Any production process that involves a large amount of labour relative to other factors of production.
Capital-intensive production
Where the production of a good or service requires a large amount of capital relative to other factors of production.
Heckscher-Ohlin theory of international trade
A theory that a country will export products produced using factors of production that are abundant, and import products whose production requires the use of scarce factors.
Infant industries
Industries in an economy that are relatively new and lack the economies of scale that would allow them to compete in international markets against more established competitors in other countries.
Profit margin
the difference between a firm’s revenue and costs, expressed as a percentage of revenue.
Dynamic efficiencies
- efficiencies that occur over time.
- International trade can lead to changes in behaviour over a period of time that can increase productive and allocative efficiency.
Knowledge and technology transfer
the process by which knowledge and technology developed in one country is transferred to another, often through licensing and franchising.
Licensing arrangements
an agreement that ideas and technology ‘owned’ by one company can be used by another, often for a charge.
Regional trading bloc
- Countries in a region that have formed an ‘economic club’ based on abolishing tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade.
e. g. the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN
Primary commodities
goods produced in the primary sector of the economy, such as coffee and tin.
Prebisch-Singer hypothesis
- The argument that countries exporting primary commodities will face decreasing terms of trade in the long run,
- leading them to have to export more and more in order to ‘pay for’ the same volume of imports of secondary sector goods / capital goods,
- which traps them in a low level of development.
Developed economies
Countries with a
1. High income per capita
2. Diversified industrial and tertiary sectors of the economy.
Examples: USA, UK, Japan and South Korea.
Developing economies
Countries with
- Relatively low income per capita
- Industrial sector is small / undeveloped
- Primary sector production is a relatively large part of total GDP.
Liberalisation (international trade context)
Reductions in the barriers to international trade, in order to allow foreign firms to gain access to the market for goods and services that are traded internationally.
Transition economies
Economies in the process of changing from central planning to the free market.
Intra-regional trade
Trade between countries in the same geographical area, for example, trade between UK and Germany, or the US and Canada.
Inter-industry trade
Trade involving the exchange of goods and services produced by different industries.
Intra-industry trade
Trade involving the exchange of goods and services produced by the same industry.